Just about everyone seemed to be flying high at the world premiere of "The Aviator" director Martin Scorsese's portrait of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

Earlier in the day, the New York-based National Board of Review ranked "The Aviator" as one of the 10 best pictures of the year. Focusing on Hughes' early years from 1930-1947, the film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, shows how Hughes built a small fortune into a massive one.

Guests at Wednesday night's premiere included DiCaprio, Gwen Stefani, who plays Jean Harlow, "Fahrenheit 9/11" director Michael Moore and Michael Mann, another Board of Review honoree, who was named best director for "Collateral."

"(Hughes) led one of the most exciting, insane lives I've ever read in my life, and I just had to play him," said DiCaprio.

"The man is a crockpot of different things: from his relationship with his mother, him being (afraid of germs), having obsessive-compulsive disorder, being this champion aviator, America's first billionaire, coming into Hollywood, turning Hollywood upside down, being this producer that went against the studio system, battling big corporations and monopolies, going against the Senate."

Scorsese, director of "Gangs of New York," "Goodfellas" and "Raging Bull," said "The Aviator" was the "biggest" movie of his career.

"I must say the flying sequences were quite intense," he told AP Television News. "But we got it in on schedule and got what we wanted on schedule, too."

Stefani, dressed in a pink-chiffon gown, said she was nervous that she wouldn't remember the one line she has in the film.

"But once you get out there, it's like, `Oh, I know this.' Because it's the top of the top, Martin Scorsese, you get do it like 4,000 times, so I think I got it OK. It was an incredible experience because of the level of the people working on the movie are so passionate and amazing and talented."